The Business Impact & Hidden Costs of Employee Tardiness

Christina J Colclough

By Christina Colclough

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Employee Tardiness

Arriving late to your work may seem harmless at first, yet this may affect a business in the long term.  An employee constantly arriving late to work will harm a company in various ways, including lesser productivity.  Additionally, it will have detrimental effects on multiple criteria. Different businesses often overlook the hidden costs associated with this factor. Therefore, it causes the company millions of dollars of losses, simultaneously ruining productivity.

Unproductive Hours

Chronic lateness may result in unproductive hours. Imagine an employee who works six hours per day. If the employee arrives ten minutes late every day, those ten minutes accumulate into many unproductive hours if counted weekly. 

The company loses many hours of work despite paying the employee. Moreover, if multiple employees are counted simultaneously, the office starts late, and the company pays for the unproductive hours. Many studies reveal that these lost hours due to employee tardiness can amount to millions of dollars, a massive loss for various businesses.

Detrimental Consequences to the Team Morale

Being constantly late to work can be dangerous for projects. If a teammate arrives late, it may cause tension and reduce morale. Also, the factor depends on how the company deals with employee tardiness.

If the company is lenient on employee tardiness, a co-worker may notice his colleague constantly coming late to work without consequences. This may affect his morale, which can lead to frustration and burnout. Initially, it may start with one employee, but as a butterfly effect, it will spread throughout the office, destroying morale.

On the contrary, if a company is very harsh on tardiness, even due to unavoidable circumstances, the workers will fear it. This creates a culture of fear in the office, and employees’ morale will slowly deteriorate. This will significantly harm the company’s productivity and result in losses.

Lack of Discipline

Constant tardiness results in disrespect for the business and the working system. If the manager ignores his employees’ tardiness, this will reflect a lack of discipline and allow other employees to take advantage of the situation.

Such a lack of discipline fosters an unhealthy working environment. It’s also disrespectful to the company because it pays employees for working hours, and tardiness is a sign of disrespect. To tackle this, various companies use a time clock to determine an employee’s working hours. Yet, not regulating this will destroy the working environment and harm the business on multiple levels.

Impact on Customer Service

A business exists solely to provide products or specific services. However, if an employee is frequently late, it affects the service. When customers face late services or product delivery, they wonder whether they chose the right business to purchase from.

Employee tardiness may cause the company to lose frequent customers. Customers always expect good and quick service because they are the ones who pay for the service or product. Hence, if an employee is constantly late, the service time also becomes slow, which causes frustration.  However, this problem can be handled if the company is strict, but it will result in a catastrophe if they do not focus on this factor. 

Conversely, research reveals that most customers are willing to pay extra for better service. Yet, employee tardiness can hamper such good service. Therefore, chronically tardy employees reduce the quality of customer service, which impacts the company by causing it to lose millions of dollars or pounds.

Rise of Administrative Issues

Employees arriving late force the administration to handle the fallout, which costs them a lot of money. First, the administration must have diverse resources and time to track employee attendance and manage the schedule. Afterward, they also have to worry about replacing late employees. Also, being late results in a lot of overtime. Furthermore, a company has to bear overtime expenses, which causes administrative issues.

This not only reduces the company’s productivity but also increases overall expenses. Managers are faced with the hassle of redistributing the workload due to employee tardiness, which often leads to rash decisions. As a result, it shakes the foundation of a business’s administration, reducing productivity and efficiency for its services.

Hampering the Efficiency

When an employee arrives late, someone must fill that position. Employees are diverted from their regular work to fill that position in various situations. Also, replacements may not have the experience to work in that distinctive position in multiple cases. Therefore, the work is less efficient, and the chances of messing up rise drastically.

If an employee is redesignated to a position he/she is unfamiliar with, the performance will drop significantly. Also, a lack of experience and training may result in unprecedented losses or examples, harming the business.

Butterfly Effect of Tardiness

A repetitive habit of arriving late to work is a massive catalyst for normalizing it. First, it depends on the company’s policy. Employees who are not faced with repercussions will be encouraged to do the same. Hence, this starts with one employee, which creates a butterfly effect and spreads like a virus, creating a tardy culture in the office.

Most importantly, it seriously affects how the business functions. No repercussions for tardiness mean the employee can come whenever they want, and the company’s productivity plummets immediately after. Also, the company loses millions of dollars and its customer base, as customers do not prefer such services from a business.

As mentioned earlier, it only takes one employee, and not rectifying their mistakes results in an unproductive working environment. 

Final Note

Employee tardiness may seem insignificant from the outside. However, the hidden costs associated with this habit result in massive losses for the company. In addition to monetary losses, it fosters an unproductive working environment and topples the administrative system. 

On the other hand, employee tardiness results in frequent frustration from others and low morale, which reduces a company’s efficiency. Not to mention, replacing late employees reduces work performance. Lastly, it also creates risks of accidents in particular businesses, which can seriously damage a company’s reputation and finances.


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Christina J Colclough

Christina J. Colclough

Dr Christina J. Colclough is an expert on The Future World of Work and the politics of digital technology advocating globally for the importance of the workers’ voice. She has extensive regional and global labour movement experience, is a sought-after keynote speaker, coach, and strategist advising progressive governments and worker organizations.

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